Zheng Weiran, Lee Lawrence Yoon Suk, Wong Kwok-Yin
Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology and the State Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Research Institute for Smart Energy, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Nanoscale. 2021 Sep 23;13(36):15177-15187. doi: 10.1039/d1nr03294a.
Direct seawater electrolysis opens a new opportunity to lower the cost of hydrogen production from current water electrolysis technologies. To facilitate its commercialization, the challenges of long-term performance stability of electrochemical devices need to be first addressed and realized. This minireview summarised the common causes of performance decline during seawater electrolysis, from chemical reactions at the electrode surface to physical damage to the cell. The problems triggered by the impurities in seawater are specifically discussed. Following these issues, we further outlined the ongoing effort of counter-measurements: from electrocatalyst optimization to electrode engineering and cell design. The recent progress in selectivity tuning, surface protection, gas diffusion, and cell configuration is highlighted. In the final remark, we emphasized the need for a consensus on evaluating the stability of seawater electrolysis in the current literature.
直接海水电解为降低当前水电解技术制氢成本带来了新机遇。为推动其商业化，首先需要应对并解决电化学装置长期性能稳定性方面的挑战。本综述总结了海水电解过程中性能下降的常见原因，涵盖从电极表面的化学反应到电池的物理损坏。特别讨论了海水中杂质引发的问题。针对这些问题，我们进一步概述了正在进行的应对措施：从电催化剂优化到电极工程和电池设计。重点介绍了在选择性调节、表面保护、气体扩散和电池构型方面的最新进展。在结语中，我们强调了当前文献中在评估海水电解稳定性方面达成共识的必要性。
